“I will restore to you the years
which the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.”
Joel 2:25 (RSV)
The symbolic meaning of locusts represents anything that destroys or eats away at things in our life. It could refer to a health issue, a broken relationship, financial loss, unforgiveness, unresolved anxiety, or a purpose that has not yet been fulfilled. Scripture tells us that God will restore whatever the locusts have eaten.
The Bible is full of stories about imperfect parents, dysfunctional families, estranged siblings, and flawed spouses, who later found their restoration from the Lord.
Scripture shows us that the greater the calling on a person, the more that the locusts come against them. There is no greater example of locusts eating away at people’s lives, than the story of Jacob and his family.
Jacob was in love with Rachel, and despite the tradition of arranged marriages, he received permission to marry her. On the wedding night, her father tricked him and gave him her older sister, Leah instead. Jacob was deceived by his father in law, who made him work seven more years just to marry Rachel, who was the love of his life.
Those seven years felt like years that the locusts took from him. When Jacob finally married Rachel, she gave birth to two sons, Joseph and then Benjamin, but she died giving birth to Benjamin. Jacob waited so long to marry Rachel, but then lost her too soon. It seemed as if the locusts ate away at the prime of Jacob’s life. That may be why he gave Joseph, Rachel’s first born, the controversial coat of many colors.
The eleven other sons of Jacob were filled with envy and their resentment turned against the favored son of their father. By this time, the family of Jacob was in a completely dysfunctional state and getting worse, as the brothers plotted to get rid of Joseph.
God had such good plans for those twelve sons of Jacob. He promised Jacob’s grandfather, Abraham, that He would make a nation from his descendants, but at this stage, his descendants were too divided for God to work out His plan.
Jacob would be deceived once more, but this time, by his eleven sons, who told him that Joseph was killed by a wild animal. That news crushed Jacob even though it was a lie. Joseph’s own brothers tossed him into a cistern, where he was picked up by slave traders, taken to Egypt and sold as a house slave. He would never see his father again for about twenty years.
Joseph was an obedient slave, until the day he refused the sexual advances of his master’s wife. Although he refused her, there were no witnesses, and he was falsely accused of rape and sent to prison. Joseph’s years as both a slave and then a prisoner were years that the locusts had taken from him.
Through Joseph’s many gifts and his trust in God, he was finally set free and promoted to second in command of Egypt. He predicted a coming famine and stored up grain, which made Egypt the only place with grain to sell during that famine.
The broken family of Jacob came to Egypt one day, to buy food, not knowing that God was planning to reunite Joseph with his eleven brothers. His brothers were shocked to see that Joseph was not only alive, but the Governor of Egypt. When Jacob saw Joseph, his son, after all those years, it was like a resurrection. The God of second chances, brought his son back into his life and reunited his family. All the brothers hugged each other and wept in love and forgiveness. God would continue His divine plan, and the twelve sons of Jacob would become the twelve tribes of Israel.
The Lord use famines, pandemics and droughts to change hearts and bring positive results. He is a restorer of all that was ever lost. God brings new life to what was dead, makes whole what was broken, and gives hope to all that seemed hopeless.
In seeing our locust years from His perspective, God is a rewarder of those who trust in Him, as Joseph did. He gives us more than we ever thought or asked for, as He did with Joseph’s brothers. Mercy and grace triumphed over the locust eaten years in Jacob’s family, and they were restored and blessed in the end.
Lord, we trust you to heal, restore and renew all that was ever eaten by the locusts in our lives. Amen
